The 100-Year-Old Best-Kept Advertising Secret

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Making great ads isn't luck.

You can manufacture great results.

The best advertisers have been doing this one method for over 100 years.

Claude Hopkins wrote Scientific Advertising in 1923.

You can steal this framework like me.

The past few months, we just finished a full series on how to think, create, and analyze an ad.

There was still one small missing piece.

How to tie in these different stages together.

And that is where our friend Claude Hopkins comes in.

A quick refresher, we have 4 stages:

• Ideation

• Production

• Launch ads

• Analyze

Most people will analyze the ads and just say, the ad worked or didn't worked.

Others will just guess what to create and are very disappointed with their results.

Few will use the analyzation stage to help them with the ideation phase.

Both Claude Hopkins and myself have a different way to create ads that sell.

The Scientific Method

In grade school, they teach the Scientific Method.

• Define a question

• Gather information

• Form a hypothesis

• Test the hypothesis by performing an experiment and collecting data

• Analyze the data

• Interpret the data and draw conclusions

• Publish results

• Retest

Back in 5th grade, I actually won my science fair with this method.

I had the question, “Will the height of the rockets be affected by the weight of the rocket?”

I had my question, and I thought the answer was yes, but I needed to test it.

My dad and I rigged up a few rockets, shot them in the air, and with the pythagoream theory, we got the heights of the rockets in the air.

Yes, they were in fact affected by the weight.

If I had more time, I might have retested or asked another question to give myself another test.

One question could be, “Does the thrust power of the rocket affect the height of the rocket?”

And then another test would kick off.

Scientific Advertising

The same is true for advertising:

• Define your angle

• Write ad / create ad

• Test ad and collect data

• Analyze the data and learn what worked or did not work

• Retest

Data is not new.

In 1920's, they based winning ads on coupons being sent to the manufacturer from the ad.

The ad that got more results was the winner.

Simple.

More results = winner.

Do more like the winner.

Many people are talking about targeting in an ads account, and not enough about how to use data to inform creative decisions.

If your hook rate is bad, you can fix the hook, and might have a winning ad.

But what ends up happening is that an ad doesn't work, and people will throw it out completely.

Claude Hopkins would have the same body ad and have 8 different headlines.

The winner takes all.

Hopkins didn't throw out a full ad because it didn't work right away. He was constantly tinkering and trying to find winners and then beat those winners.

He was the first to take an analytical approach to advertising, and I think we have lost this art a bit with the rise of Facebook ads.

But the arbitrage is over my friends, and you have to be good at advertising and creative, not targeting and account management.

This feedback loop cannot be linear, it must be circular. Everything builds on each other.

I have seen first hand millions of dollars come from iterations and message testing. This method is still the best method 100 years later.

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The Reality of This Method

This scientific method allows you to find winning ads using data.

This doesn't mean you will get it right every time, right away, but over time, using data, you can iterate your way to winning ads.

Claude Hopkins, one of the greatest advertisers of all time, did not get every headline to be a winner.

He knew most of his stuff would not work, but if he could use data to inform his decisions, he would get closer to the winning ads.

The data allows you to know what to say and what not to say .

The market decides for you.

You just need to take that data feedback and let that inform your ideation process.

Have a hypothesis.

Create.

Test.

Analyze data.

Iterate.

The Work No One is Willing to Do

Few advertisers will spend the time picking apart their current ads to improve the future ads.

This effort is the difference of getting results.

Take the time, a few hours a week, and literally just watch your old ads with the data.

Don’t just say, oh the hook didn’t work because it was 13% hook rate.

Ask yourself, what is happening in the hook that makes 87% swipe away?

The answer to this question is your next test.

Over the course of a few months, if you run this system, you will find winners.

Hopkins, Ogilvy, Goodo Studios, and others run this method.

At the end of the day, scientists are curious.

They have questions about the world, and they use experiments to help them find answers to those questions.

Advertisers must be curious about their ads and impact with the consumer.

Take the guessing out of advertising, and find positioning for your brand in the marketing.

You can still dominate and scale facebook and digital ads, you just need to use the platforms and data to your advantage. Very few people are doing so.

As we end this series, I want to know what you want from me next. What would be helpful to hear and learn?

Please let me know.

Until then, keep creating!

Matthew Gattozzi

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